


dry your hollow eyes

by sister_wolf



Category: Runaways (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Timeline, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-16
Updated: 2008-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_wolf/pseuds/sister_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chase feels like he's missed a few episodes of his own personal sitcom.  For one thing, he wasn't in a <em>band</em> when he went to sleep last night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dry your hollow eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/marveloustales/profile)[**marveloustales**](http://community.livejournal.com/marveloustales/). A huge thank you to my betas, [](http://seimaisin.livejournal.com/profile)[**seimaisin**](http://seimaisin.livejournal.com/) and [](http://athenejen.livejournal.com/profile)[**athenejen**](http://athenejen.livejournal.com/). And a note re _Runaways_ canon: Gert has said that she plays the drums, and Nico has mentioned wanting to learn the bass.

Chase was jolted out of sleep as something soft and enveloping, with multiple floppy arms, hit him in the face. "Aah!" he shrieked (not at all like a little girl), flailing at it until it let go. Embarrassingly enough, the thing turned out to be just a hoodie, not a furry alien octopus or anything like that.

"That's my big, tough boyfriend," Gert said, laughing. "You need to get moving, pumpkin cheeks. We've got to be at the bar by 4 PM to set up, and it's already 2:30."

2:30. He had to remember that. There was something important that was going to happen in twelve hours, but he couldn't quite remember what.

Chase sat up, scratching his head. "Hey, Gert? Was there something I was supposed to remember about tonight?"

"Not that I can think of. Why?" Gert asked absently as she sat down on the end of the bed and started pulling on tights-- no, _fishnet stockings_. Chase boggled. He'd never seen Gert wear anything remotely girly before, much less something deliberately intended to be sexy.

Before. Before...

Before what? Why did he feel like he'd missed a few episodes of his own personal sitcom?

"What's up, monkeybutt?" Gert posed in front of him, holding her arms out and twirling a little. "What do you think, pretty hot for a chubby girl?"

She was wearing a black tee-shirt that said "SUGARSHOCK!" in bright pink letters over a white button-down shirt, with a striped tie knotted haphazardly a few inches below her collar, a short plaid skirt, and bright purple Converse sneakers along with the ripped and shredded fishnets.

Chase continued to boggle.

"Holy shit," he said fervently. "I really want to have sex with you right now."

Gert's cheeks turned pink and she looked grumpy, which he had learned was her standard response to being complimented. That didn't mean she didn't like compliments, just that she wouldn't let herself look too pleased about them. "Keep it in your boxers, Romeo. Nico will kill us if we make the band run late when we have an actual, paying gig."

"... the band?" Chase asked faintly, as Gert knelt on the floor and started digging through a small mountain of clothing.

"Yeah, the band that you're the manager and general tour monkey for?" Gert sat back on her heels, looking at him suspiciously. "Chase, you're not high, are you?"

"What? No! At least, I'm pretty sure I'm not." At her dubious look, he protested, "Look, all I know is that I wasn't in a _band_ when I went to bed. I was..." he hesitated, digging through strangely murky memories of the recent past. "We were all in a superhero team together... Only we weren't real superheroes, we were just kids. We were runaways."

"That's the name of our band." Frowning, Gert searched his eyes. Chase met her eyes steadily, hoping that she knew him well enough to know when he was being serious. Apparently satisfied, she said, "Okay, I believe you. That you're not high, not the crazy story about the superheroes."

"Yeah, crazy, huh? I guess it was just some kind of weird dream," Chase laughed nervously.

"You better lay off on the late-night burritos, lover boy, they're obviously giving you some weird-ass nightmares." Gert rolled her eyes at him and went back to searching through the mound of clothing.

Except that it seemed so real, like he'd lived through all of it. Their parents secretly being supervillains, their deal with the Gibborim, everything. And Gert-- oh god.

"You were _dead_," Chase whispered, his eyes widening in dawning horror as the memories came flooding back to him. Gert had been dead for exactly one year. But last night, on the anniversary of her death, Chase had made a deal with something almost as old and nasty as the Gibborim in order to change the past. To make it so that Gert had never died.

Of course, nothing like that was ever _free_. There was always a price.

Chase looked around the room. Band posters on the wall, some that he recognized and some he'd never heard of. A Transformers movie poster (his) next to a painting of an enormous, bright red flower (hers). Christmas tree lights strung over the window and the bed. A whiteboard next to the door with a shopping list ("milk, cereal, chips &amp; salsa" in her handwriting, "BEER" in his handwriting). They had a life together here. A normal life, without supervillains, mad scientists, or alien invasions.

Grinning, Chase gave a surreptitious fist-pump into the air. He'd done it. He'd actually fucking done it.

Gert crowed victoriously, holding up a black jean jacket with a purple skull and crossbones on the back. "Hah! I knew it had to be in there somewhere-- aah!" she squeaked as Chase tackled her.

"Hi," he said, grinning down at her. Gert's hair was spread out like a bright purple fan across a pile of tee-shirts and jeans in varying shades of black.

She frowned at him tolerantly. "Chase, get off me. We have to be out the door in twenty, and you still need to take a shower."

"More than enough time. I can shower when I'm dead," Chase said, laying one on her all Hollywood-style.

"But-- late-- mmmm, okay."

(In the end, they were only about fifteen minutes late, but Nico still bitched them out royally.)

***

So, it turned out that in this timeline, his girlfriend was a smoking hot punk-rock drummer chick.

Chase had always thought that Gert was totally sexy in a hot librarian kind of way. But behind a drum kit? Holy shit. He was just surprised that he wasn't beating groupies away from her with one of her own drumsticks.

Of course, it looked like Karolina and Nico had their own share of groupies. He could definitely see the attraction, but (to his own surprise as much as anyone else's) Chase Stein was a one-woman man.

Being manager and general tour monkey, Chase discovered, involved dealing with sleazy bar owners (not even a challenge, not after dealing with the Kingpin), lugging around ass-loads of heavy equipment (he really hoped they'd make it big enough to afford roadies soon), and standing around on the side of the stage pretending to be band security (which was actually kind of fun). Also, he got to watch the show from way close up, which was totally cool. They were kind of pop-punk, kind of eighties-sounding, and though it wasn't Chase's usual kind of music, he had to admit that the Runaways totally rocked.

Karolina was so incandescently bright under the stage lights, playing her guitar and singing, that he'd almost been convinced that she'd started glowing, except that he'd caught a glimpse on her wrist of the med-alert bracelet that dampened her powers. Nico had shredded a few calluses while playing her bass, and though he'd seen a little blood, the Staff of One hadn't come leaping out of her chest at the first sign of blood. Victor seemed to be playing his synthesizer without any of his freaky machine-controlling powers; plus, no blue, glowing breath of extreme minty freshness. Before the show, Chase had asked Molly for help shifting a heavy amp, and she'd just rolled her eyes at him like he was being deliberately obnoxious and stomped away to man their little merch table.

In this timeline, none of the Runaways seemed to know about their powers. He wondered how far back the timeline had split off. The fact that there was no sign of Xavin might be a clue, but he needed more info.

So far, the creature he'd made the deal with was holding up its side of the bargain: Gert was alive and happy, and the Runaways were together. No sign of their parents or Alex, either, which had been the other part of Chase's wish. He hadn't specified alive or dead, just that their parents and Alex wouldn't be able to hurt anyone anymore. Even though they totally deserved it, he couldn't quite bring himself to wish them dead.

Though if either Alex or Geoffrey Wilder _were_ alive, Chase would quite happily kill them himself.

Chase finally got a chance to ask some of his burning questions after the show, when he and Victor got paired up driving the van full of equipment back to their practice space while the others followed in Nico's tiny hatchback. The equipment van turned out to be Chase's old white panel van, which was a welcome bit of familiarity among all the freaking weirdness.

Generally speaking, most people who knew Chase would not describe him as anything resembling subtle. Which was fair enough -- he wasn't particularly subtle, no, but he _was_ sneaky. And he knew that Victor had a tendency to get way talkative if you plied him with enough Red Bull. Over the course of about forty-five minutes, Chase got Victor to spill the beans about practically everything he knew about the Runaways.

The point where everything in this timeline split off seemed to be about six months before they'd discovered their parents were evil, back in the real world. The Pride's last underwater ritual got interrupted by the Avengers before they could complete it. The Gibborim didn't take failure lightly-- the undersea temple exploded, killing all of their parents. Alex was missing and presumed dead. Chase hoped that if there was a hell, Alex was rotting in it.

After their parents were killed, everyone got split up into foster homes except for Chase, who talked the judge into letting him stay with his non-existent aunt (which was a stroke of brilliance, if he did say so himself). Nico got labeled as "troubled" because of her witchy goth thing and ended up getting shuttled around the LA County foster system. Karolina got adopted by a nice couple from Brentwood, except that the mom turned out to be a drunk and the dad turned out to be a creep. There didn't actually seem to be anything wrong with the couple who adopted Molly, but she was practically a serial runaway by the time she ran into Nico and Karolina again. They were all runaways.

Apparently, some things didn't change, no matter how much you fucked with the time-space continuum.

***

"Oh, man, I am _so_ tired," Gert moaned, flopping back onto the bed with her arms stretched out.

Chase kicked off his boots and sprawled next to her. "I'm fuckin' exhausted, and all I did was stand around most of the night. Oh yeah, and I moved a bunch of amps that weigh about ten million pounds each. Can we get a roadie, baby?"

Gert snorted. "Yeah, sure. As soon as pigs carrying recording contracts start flying out of my rectum."

Chase laughed so hard that he snorted. Rolling on his side, he slid his arm across her stomach and pillowed his head on her chest. His voice muffled by the side of her breast, he said without thinking, "I love you."

He could feel Gert's body stiffen. Ah, crap, he was normally better at not backing her into a corner with the whole "I love you" thing. It didn't bug him that she wouldn't say it -- whatever, they were just words. He knew how she felt. But Gert had issues, and well, love Gert, love her issues.

"Oh, man, did you see that total Nico fanboy at the front of the pit?" he asked, diving right into the awkward silence. There were certain advantages to having a reputation for being oblivious. "I was like, dude, there's a _line_ between imitating your favorite rockstar's style and actually dressing in costume as them, and you, my friend, have stepped _right_ over it."

"That's nothing," Gert scoffed. "There was a kid in the autograph line who totally swore up and down that Karolina was glowing. Psychedelic colors and everything. I thought we were going to have to call you over to kick him out, but he wasn't stalkery about it, just weird."

Oh, yeah, he was good. Serious relationship talk completely avoided, thanks to the silver tongue (and amazing bullshitting abilities) of Chase Stein.

Later, while Gert was still recovering from the _other_ thing he was really good at doing with his tongue, Chase asked, "This is gonna sound kind of out of the blue, but... Are you happy?"

"Why, are you about to piss me off?" Gert looked fantastic, spread out on the dark purple sheets with her hair all tangled and her cheeks bright red. Chase wished he could take a picture of her like that, but she'd shove the camera right up his ass if he was stupid enough to try.

"No, I'm serious." Chase moved so that he was sitting cross-legged on the bed next to her. "Are you happy right now, with the band and everything, just the way it is?"

Gert raised her head off the pillow so that she could glare at him more effectively. "You're dangerously close to killing the afterglow, lover boy."

"It's not a big deal, I just... kind of need to know," Chase said, running his hand up and down the inside of her thigh.

Gert snapped her legs together, trapping his hand between her knees. "Nice try, but you're not going to distract me that way. What is going on with you, Chase? You've been acting bizarre all night."

Chase hung his head, laughing under his breath. "I should have known you'd figure out that something was going on. Perils of dating a smart chick, I guess." He cleared his throat nervously and began, "So, I have something to tell you, and it's going to sound pretty crazy." He checked the clock -- 2:10 AM. Not much time left.

Gert sat up cross-legged and scootched forward so that her knees rested against his. "You know you can always tell me what's going on with you. I may yell at you -- I may yell at you a _lot_ \-- but I'd much rather have you tell me the truth than ever lie to me."

"Okay, so." Chase took a deep breath. This was going to sound completely insane, and he knew it. "You know how I had that dream that we were all in a superhero team together? It wasn't just a dream. It was real. We ran away after we found out that our parents were super-villains. We discovered that we had powers of our own -- like, Karolina is an alien and Nico is a witch -- and eventually we took our parents out ourselves. All the Avengers ever did for us was send us to foster homes. But then we ran away again, and we've been fighting the good fight ever since. Kind of trying to make up for all the bad shit our parents did."

"I think we're more the 'running the fuck away' type than the 'fighting the good fight' type," Gert said, looking skeptical. "Also, that's completely insane. But okay, say this is true, that we're some kind of wacky teen superheroes. Why would you be the only one of us who remembers any of this?"

"I, um." Hoping that saying it quickly would make it sound less colossally stupid, Chase said in a rush, "I made a deal with some totally creepy dude with red skin and pointy ears, who kind of implied that he's, y'know. The Devil."

"The Devil. Like, as in Satan? All theological debates aside, why the hell would you ever think that making a deal with the Devil was a good idea?" Gert asked, throwing her hands up in the air.

"It was worth it." Chase caught one of Gert's hands and tugged it into his lap, tracing the lines on her palm with his index finger.

"Well, I hope you didn't wish for us to be rock stars, babe, 'cause if so, you need to get your money back," Gert drawled.

"No, it wasn't anything stupid like that, hard as that may be to believe," Chase snorted. "I wished for something that happened, something terrible, not to have happened at all. And I'm not going to tell you what that was, because I don't want you figuring out how to reverse it when I'm gone."

"When you're _what_?" Gert demanded.

Chase met her angry gaze, shrugging unhappily. "It's like the song says, the Devil doesn't do anything without a price." He checked the clock again. 2:20. He had ten more minutes left.

"What price?" Gert demanded, her voice raising. "I can't believe I'm actually taking this seriously, but Chase, if this isn't total bullshit, I am going to be _so_ angry at--"

Chase leaned forward, kissing her hard. Holding her hands tightly, he said, "Listen to me, Gert. I only have a few more minutes, and I really, really don't want to spend them arguing."

"Then stop talking like a crazy person!" Gert yelled. "What the hell do you mean, you only have a few more minutes? A few more minutes before what?"

"Gert, please, just-- listen to me," Chase begged. Fuck, he knew this was going to be hard, but he had no idea _how_ hard it'd be. "I wrote some stuff down that you're going to need to know, 'cause otherwise Victor might turn into a homicidal cyborg and kill every superhero on earth. Also, you're _really_ going to like your parents' 18th birthday present to you. Her name is Old Lace, and she might be a little cranky because of the temporal stasis field. Anyway, everything I could think of is in the notebook on the dresser."

"This is not a funny joke, you asshole," Gert said, starting to sound more frightened than angry.

"I wish it was a joke. God, you have no idea how much. You want to know something funny?" he asked, trying to smile at her. "I never thought I'd be the kind of guy who'd want to settle down with someone and do the whole house in the suburbs, 2.5 kids and a dog bullshit. Not until I met you."

Her voice hoarse and uneven, Gert said, "Chase, you're scaring the shit out of me right now."

"I'm sorry, baby." Chase kissed Gert's palms and then folded her fingers over where he'd kissed. "I wish I could stay, I wish I could watch you guys be big rock stars and end up on the covers of all the magazines, but I can't. It was worth it, though. I don't mind dying as long as I know that you're okay."

Gert was crying. Truth be told, so was he.

"Be careful. Stay safe. I love you." Chase kissed her like it was the end of the world.

And as the color bleached out of the world and everything turned blinding white, he thought he could hear her saying that she loved him too.

***

Chase blinked awake, staring up into darkness. He was lying on a cold, hard surface, his body was totally sore, and he was fucking freezing. But he was breathing and not, like, obviously zombified or anything. "Dude, what the fuck," he said, his voice coming out in a scratchy whisper. "I'm not dead?"

Nico leaned over him, holding onto the Staff of One like it was the only thing keeping her upright. "Not anymore, you're not. And you owe me _so_ big for that, by the way. Do you have any idea how tough it is to get a soul back from Hell?"

Brushing something dark and crumbly (he wasn't even going to ask) off his chest, Chase sat up carefully. "Hey, why am I naked?"

The room that they were in looked totally like a dungeon, with dark stone walls and a bare stone floor. There were some kind of witchy symbols written on the floor in chalk, and a bunch of white pillar candles. Chase took that all in in a second, scanning the group of people clustered behind Nico. Karolina, beaming at Chase and holding hands with Xavin in girl-form. Molly, scowling with her arms crossed. Victor, looking totally freaked out for some reason. But no Gert.

"Where's Gert?" Chase demanded, lurching to his feet. "If I'm not dead, then _where is she_?"

"Contemplating your imminent demise," Gert said from directly behind him.

Chase's head turned so quickly he almost gave himself whiplash. "Gert!" He couldn't help staring at her with what was probably a really doofy look on his face. She was alive! She looked tired, filthy, bruised, and totally beautiful. And also murderously angry, but whatever, she'd either get over it or she'd kill him. The most important part was, she was _alive_.

"First off, I can't believe you sold your soul to a sleazebucket like Mephisto," Gert said, glaring at him. Old Lace, resting her chin on Gert's shoulder, echoed her with a low growl. "Secondly, you couldn't have warned me that Old Lace was a _velociraptor_? Yeah, you forgot to include that little detail, brainiac. And third," she said, stepping forward to poke him in the chest with her finger, "If you ever -- and I mean, _ever_ \-- do something that stupid again, I will kill you myself."

Chase grinned at Gert helplessly. He'd never been so happy to hear her yelling at him in his life. "I love you too, baby."

*end*


End file.
